Yesterday, we received a call from Congressman Earl Blumenauer’s office here in Portland, Oregon. The purpose of the call was to discuss an idea to deal with the oversupply of marijuana in the state sanctioned Oregon market. Specifically, the idea was to explore the possibility of an interstate compact with California, where Oregon would sell
Happy MLK Day! For our international readers, Martin Luther King, Jr. Day is an American federal holiday marking the birthday of its eponymous civil rights hero. Dr. King was the chief spokesperson for nonviolent activism in the Civil Rights Movement, which successfully protested racial discrimination in federal and state law. Dr. King was assassinated in
It’s finally happening — Attorney General Jeff Sessions will, today, rescind the 2013 Cole Memo regarding federal enforcement in states that legalized cannabis. The Cole Memo, which came on the heels of marijuana legalization in Colorado and Washington back in 2012, set forth the Obama administration’s enforcement policies regarding state-legal marijuana. It set out eight
At 3:30pm PST today, Sen. Ron Wyden became the first US Senate Co-Sponsor of Sen. Cory Booker’s Marijuana Justice Act (“MJA”). We’ve discussed the content of the MJA before here and as we stated in the Portland Mercury: “Booker’s Marijuana Justice Act is remarkable in its scope. Not only would it remove marijuana and tetrahydrocannabinols (THC) from Schedule I classification,
In Cannabis Edibles and the FDA, I discussed the basics of FDA regulation of cannabis edibles. On November 1, 2017, the FDA provided further specific examples of prohibited health claims made for cannabis products, in this case, cannabidiol (CBD): The FDA has grown increasingly concerned at the proliferation of products claiming to treat or cure serious
The Food & Drug Administration (FDA) has only the jurisdiction Congress gave it in the Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act (FDCA). Under this act, the FDA has broad regulatory powers over legal drugs, with more limited powers over food. Under the FDCA, the FDA categorizes a substance as either a food or a drug depending on how
Tom Price, Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS), resigned his post last week amid public health and personal travel debacles. Mr. Price’s resignation drew very little coverage from cannabis reporters, however, which was sort of strange because the HHS Secretary wields more influence over cannabis law and policy than any other public official besides Attorney General
Tuesday afternoon, the Washington Post broke an article that acting Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) chief Chuck Rosenberg plans to resign within a week. Rosenberg is an Obama administration holdover going back to 2015, so the news was not totally unexpected. President Trump will be tasked with selecting a successor, which will lead to a confirmation hearing
U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions is worried about this country’s “historic drug epidemic and potentially long-term uptick in violent crime.” Because he is so worried, Sessions has spent the past month doing things like: (1) asking his old colleagues for funds to prosecute the War on Drugs, including medical marijuana; (2) writing letters to state
Our Oregon lawyers have been fielding many questions regarding a recent civil RICO complaint filed in the federal court in Portland, Oregon styled as McCart v. Beddow et al. This case was filed on the heels of the Safe Streets decision out of Colorado that we discussed recently, and was clearly heavily influenced by that decision. You
